


For the Lucky and the Strong

by freddieofhearts



Category: Queen (Band), Rock Music RPF
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Eating Disorders, HIV/AIDS, Hurt/No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Telephone Calls, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2020-09-06 03:24:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20284594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freddieofhearts/pseuds/freddieofhearts
Summary: Some telephone calls. A love story.





	1. 1984

*

It’s not something he usually does, because it makes him feel pathetic in a bad way. Not sweet; not I’ll-eat-you-up-I-love-you-so; not someone who a man would put his arms around, pull in close—then closer—bend his head to kiss. 

For him it isn’t always like that, but he doesn’t want to remember. Sometimes they love you, don’t they? He’s sat on so many men’s laps, held, kept briefly safe. You can’t come crying for more, it’s greedy, don’t be like that! Parodies of old queens who behave badly. Not the sweet sort of badly, but risible, everybody laughing. And serve you right. 

Only it’s a hard night, he’s been crying. Normally he doesn’t fuss over a little bruise, an abrasion, such silly things. That’s how to get yourself singled out as a delicate flower, in a bad way, and nobody will want to play with you. He can be a baby, but he isn’t, not as a rule, about sex, about love. He’s all grown up. He always has been. He doesn’t have a handkerchief and he won’t wake Phoebe up for something like this, embarrassing rows and not managing, being a little silly—he’s in the bathroom with the door locked, sitting right up against the bath. He’s taken the loo roll to use for tissues, and it’s all right, really, he’s mopping his nose and trying to calm down. It was stupid. 

What would he say? That Winnie hurt him—only a tiny bit, nothing to whine about. Why all this, these baby tears. “The Dramatics,” they called it, when he was a boy. Smack on the bottom. Stop your waterworks, it’ll get you nowhere, Bulsara. You ought to know by now. 

He _does_ know. 

Freddie hates hearing himself make that sound, sniffling like a little child. It’s everything he doesn’t want to be, that he’s tried to leave behind. So he flips the bathroom light switch and tries out the dark for size. It’s better, in a way. No mirror, not one that does its job, only an eerie, fairyland glint that could be almost anything. No getting old. No time at all. It’s a lonely place, this pocket of glimmering blue-black, with the cold side of the bath waiting for him to curl up against it again. It’s inviting, in its own way. There’s something stern about the chill. You can’t get this wrong. You can’t let this down. 

Over and over, though: everything else is susceptible. 

So instead he leans against the window, breathing on the frosted glass. His breath layering itself over the inherent mist. Mystery. Mercury. Letting you see absolutely nothing. 

Mercury’s part relents soon enough. The breath melts off, melts fast, and the glass is still so occluded that the only thing ever to get through it is light, or darkness.

He shouldn’t keep doing this, probably—but he’s going to, that’s the truth, as far as he can make it out. Once Roger, frustrated past bearing, hissed at him, “You don’t know what’s good for you.”

At the time he felt there was some disappointment, when he didn’t try to argue with that. It seemed too obvious for all the emotion Roger put into it. “Hit me, you’ll feel so much better,” he wanted to say, but he’d said that once before, and it didn’t help in the least. 

He unlocks the door, pressing on the lock with his cold fingers so its click is quiet as can be. There’s loneliness, and then there’s loneliness. One is a tolerable artistic matter; it hurts, oh yes, but so do a lot of things worth having, in the end. The breaching of muscle. Most people’s hands. The other is a sucking place, ragged edged. You can’t look straight at it. It isn’t even as simple as being eight or nine or ten, or eighteen, or any other age. It’s all of them, and now, and the great empty future. It’s getting old. What it will be like, when everybody’s dead—and the thought, the echo of the thought, brings back those never-ending nights, a bed in a room in the vast, vast black. _I am a speck of nothing inside nothing_. 

Though he’s cold, his hand is sweating, and he fumbles the phone. Clumsy, graceless, what’s wrong with you, but he taps in the number. He shouldn’t know it off by heart, and yet he does. 

The ringing goes on for ages, and his throat tightens so much that when someone picks up he can hardly speak. It’s the landlady again, isn’t it? Oh God, he’s not supposed to do this, and he’s torn between hanging up immediately, or pretending to be someone else—he can do a good American accent—or maybe actually crying a little, which he would never do, never, except he doesn’t want to ruin things for Jim, and he knows it would work. It wouldn’t be pretending, it would be _stopping_ pretending. 

He doesn’t do any of those things, but instead he stammers like a fool, can’t even ask for Jim without getting his name jumbled up. Fuck, no, it’s all gone wrong, why did he do this in the first place? It’s selfish, terribly selfish, if he won’t wake Phoebe then he certainly shouldn’t wake Jim, and if Winnie doesn’t want him, why should anybody. Of course he doesn’t really cry, but he chokes a little over saying his own name, which is probably the most idiotic thing he’s done this week.

“Freddie?” 

And it’s him, it truly is. The voice is recognisable instantly, not just the accent but the warmth of it, and the particular timbre. He has no idea what to say, though, so he says, “Mm,” and feels himself blush. Usually he isn’t like this, the one thing he’s good for is a bit of a flirt, for heaven’s sake. He used to get tongue-tied but he’s over all that now. Maybe it’s only being tired, and the aches and pains, making him stupid. He should make an effort, though; he’s woken Jim up, dear Jim, with a job to go to! And everything! 

“I wanted to talk to you,” he says, feeling shy but desperate not to seem it, “About—about fucking me some more. You seem terribly good at that. A natural.” He can hear in his own voice all the shy bits, how he’s lisping more than usual, and he stammers over the word ‘terribly’. It sounds affected. He hopes Jim can’t tell, doesn’t think he seems frightened, or as if he’s putting it on. 

None of it’s a lie. It isn’t why he called, but he wouldn’t lie to Jim, he simply wouldn’t. 

Jim laughs, and the line crackles at the sound of the laughter. The receiver feels cool against Freddie’s burning cheek. 

He hangs up.

*


	2. 1985

*

“Phoebe speaking. And who’s this?”

For just an instant he’s taken aback, because stupidly he expected Freddie himself to answer. Now he thinks, Jesus Mary and Joseph, what a fool you are, Jim, as if he’d pick up the phone, you were being daft to think so. 

“Jim,” he says, “Hutton, I mean—Jim Hutton.” Heaven knows how many men named Jim are revolving in Freddie’s orbit. Vanity, my lad, will be your undoing. He’s increasingly aware that he likes Freddie a lot, a hell of a lot; that he’s fallen head over heels for him. And yet there’s all this mystery, still; the other men, the little intrigues. He’s never quite sure if Freddie’s playing with him, if he has Jim exactly where he wants him—or if that’s altogether wrong, and he’s misunderstood everything. He can’t begin to guess what Freddie thinks, what he wants. 

“Oh, he _will_ be pleased.” The voice floating into his ear, from so far away, is flatteringly enthusiastic. “He—well, you see, Jim, something happened yesterday. We’ve been up at the hospital, all last night–”

“What’s wrong with him?” Jim blurts, unable to be polite, unable to let Phoebe Freestone tell the story however he wants to. At least Freddie obviously isn’t _dead_. But anything could have happened, anything, and he feels an odd worming sickness deep inside him. 

“It’s just his leg,” Phoebe says quickly, “But you know how he is.” Jim hears the quick indrawing of breath. He doesn’t really know—Freddie’s never been too badly injured, since they met—but it’s a nice feeling, to have Phoebe take for granted that he does. 

“What happened?” he says. He wants to say, please, please, just tell me, but he keeps the words folded, keeps them in. 

“God, I don’t know,” Phoebe says, and there’s an edge in his voice now that Jim cannot parse. Has he pushed too far? Asked too much? Surely Phoebe knows he’s only asking because he cares for Freddie, it’s not from prurience. 

“He was out,” Phoebe’s saying, “And I didn’t go, I had a headache–” His voice has climbed in pitch, gone shrill. “I wish I had gone,” he says, and Jim is careful not to interrupt now, not to say a word, because whatever this means, it’s nothing to do with him. “They say it was a _fight_,” Phoebe adds, “But Freddie doesn’t fight, he’s so gentle, the most gentle man–” He breaks off again and Jim hears him swallow. 

“Is he—what’s wrong with him?” he asks cautiously. 

“It’s quite a bad injury,” Phoebe says, sounding rattled. “Paul brought him back and he—he kept passing out, but he wouldn’t let me call an ambulance. We had to make him go, by car, and now he has a cast, a huge thing … God, it’s thigh to ankle. He’s being so sweet about it, he keeps apologising, but I don’t know how he’s going to manage–”

“Could—do you think I could speak to him?” Jim is rather doubtful about asking, but now he knows about this, this injury—Freddie _hurt_—the yearning to hear him, his unmistakable, lovely, posh little voice, is even stronger than before. 

“I think he’d love it,” Phoebe says. He sounds immensely decisive. “I’ll put you through to the bedroom, and I’ll go and tell him it’s you, so he knows to pick up. Stay on the line.” 

Jim hears the buzz and rattle of being put through, and he waits, trying not to worry. Of course he worries all the same, but he doesn’t want to sound glum if he does get to speak to Freddie. Surely it would be better to cheer him up?

“Jim?” 

For a moment he’s confused. It takes several long, stretched-out seconds for him to recognise the voice as Freddie’s, and it’s only when it repeats his name that he knows: yes. This is Freddie. And really, the diction, the delicate tone of the voice is the same as ever—only Freddie sounds alarmingly different, sounds much, much younger, sounds _too_ young. He’s seen Freddie hanging back in public places, seen the shyness, how he relies on everyone around him, but it never seemed to mean all that much. It was his manner, and a strange thing, perhaps, but everybody has their own little ways. Stardom is something he can’t understand, it’s simply never been in his lexicon until now, and how much of Freddie’s funny mixed manner—at once timid and bold, flighty and softly loving—comes from the strain of being in the public eye for so many years is something he hasn’t even tried to guess at.

“Hello, you,” he says, making his voice as gentle as he can, but trying not to sound humourless, to keep his address to Freddie a little playful, tender, flirty. 

“I hurt my—my leg,” Freddie’s strange, little-boy voice says. “They said it—it—it was in a sort of fight, and they—they made me go to the hospital.” He sounds very slightly affronted. 

Jim wishes suddenly and acutely that he could be there, right this minute, that he could put his arms round Freddie and kiss him, not for sex this time, only for comfort, only to let him know that whatever is so frightening and horrid about this, be it the pain or the injury itself, the cast, or what the hell it means for Freddie’s work—that he doesn’t have to be as scared-sounding as this. 

“What sort of fight, poppet?” The endearment comes out thoughtlessly. He’s never called Freddie that before—never called any lover that, any boyfriend. Don’t offend him, for Christ’s sake, he reproaches himself, but he hears Freddie snuffle a little, through the crackle of the line, and there’s no objection, no joke. 

“I don’t remember.” It’s an even smaller voice now. “A big one?” Then a more characteristic Freddie giggle. “And you’d know all about _that_, dear–”

“I think by now you know as well as I do,” Jim says, “You’ve—made an acquaintance.” He’s heartened to hear Freddie laugh a bit. 

“Poor Phoebe,” he says, sounding closer to his normal self, more deliberate. “I have been such a bother, can’t think how she puts up with me.” 

“I’d like to come and put up with you,” Jim says. It’s far more bold than is usual with him. He’s never said anything that could be construed as asking Freddie for a favour, a ticket, a treat. But he goes on, “I just rang you up because I missed hearing your voice, but now? Well, I wouldn’t want you to despond, and not get better quickly, would I?”

“I—I’m actually not going to be—be much fun,” says Freddie, “If you come now. I’m—it’s not that I—that I don’t want you to, but I’m so boring, dear. Lying about like a slattern!” He giggles. 

“You’d be a very pretty slattern,” Jim says, without thinking it over. He’s not sure how that sounds, but Freddie seems to take it as a compliment, as he laughs again. 

“I can help to look after you,” Jim adds. He wouldn’t push, not at all, if he thought Freddie wanted him to stay away, but he’s far from convinced that he does. 

“Never!” Freddie half-shrieks, and all the lost-little-child air has finally been purged from his voice, now. “Not you, darling. No, but if you come–” He hesitates. “I just don’t want you to be—be bored,” he murmurs. 

Jim says, “I’ve never been bored with you, Freddie, not for a moment–”

Freddie interrupts as if Jim has entirely missed the point. “I—no, no, no, you don’t—you don’t see,” he says, “I can’t be fucked yet, dear, I’m sorry. I mean, I’ll _try_, of course, but it might—might be difficult…” His voice trails into a rather pitiful diminuendo of a sound, as if he can’t make out how to convince Jim that he’ll do his best, without over-promising. 

“I’m buying a ticket,” Jim says. To hell with savings. To hell with travelling in style. He just wants to get there, no matter what time the flight—to be there. “Be there as soon as I can, sweetie.” He makes a kissy sound into the phone, as if it can travel along the line to Freddie, so far away in Germany. As if the feel of his lips can land on Freddie’s skin. 

And he hangs up before Freddie can argue any more.

*


	3. 1986

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Magic Tour.

*

Foreign water.

Joe Fanelli is always forgetting, impatient, slurping straight from the faucet—though there are bottles and bottles of the good stuff in Freddie’s suite, in case anybody should want some. 

The faintly chlorinated taste. It shocks him, a mistake he’s made over and over. He’s lucky, though, he never seems to get the shits from it. He isn’t careful, never has been. Not his nature. 

Or only with Freddie, because you have to be, with him –

Jesus H. Christ, and I used to fuck him. He wipes his mouth and leaves the bathroom. Only two minutes alone, that’s all you get. Back to the job. 

He’s stroking Freddie’s hair, sitting on the uncomfortable edge of a bed which looks like it ought to be in a museum. Too big for Freddie, or for Freddie all by himself, which these days means it will probably be Joe who has to stay with him. No strangers allowed. 

His ass hurts. It’s an unfriendly bed, and he wants to laugh, deep inside himself: when did he turn into such a pussy? As if his ass has never had worse! Only Freddie would take it to be laughter at his expense. He isn’t rational, not now, not on the subject of laughing, or himself, or his appearance, or what he eats or does not eat, or his hair. 

Or what Jim Hutton might be doing. Or how the others really feel about his performance so far. 

His skull feels little, frail under Joe’s hand, under its cap of soft hair. They’ve been doing the usual painstaking grooming. Plucking his eyebrows and the hair on his back. It’s intensely intimate, but the charge between them doesn’t rekindle, and this, Joe thinks, is probably why. Isn’t it? 

He’s always been a ball of nerves. No chill. It takes about five minutes with him to suss that out, unless you’re a moron of the first order. Everyone who works for Queen knows it too, and Freddie definitely hasn’t been fucked by most of them: for one thing, they’re nearly all straight. 

Can’t really picture one of them in here with him, Joe thinks, glancing up from Freddie, who’s buried in pillows and linens, and surveying the rosy, lamplit opulence of the room. Of course, he’s no dummy himself, and well aware that rough trade isn’t exactly as improbable as His Nibs sometimes makes it seem. 

Even so, though. There’s knowing and there’s knowing. 

The band inner circle, which even boyfriends—even the fucking fishies!—can’t get into, that’s one thing. And Freddie’s inner circle… 

_No comment_. In his beautiful voice. Dark eyes shuttered, turning nervously away, trembling perhaps? 

Fucking him revealed things that it seemed nothing else could. Tears and terrors. His throat hitching under your hand, body shrunken and sweaty in the middle of the bed. 

Recollections now of the weeping and flinching. 

How, he’s often wondered, how in fuck’s name did Phoebe settle into the retinue like that? _Without_ giving it to Freddie first, the way he likes it. It’s one of the few things Joe can’t ask, but he wants to. How did you find out he’s as shit scared as he is, and don’t say he told you because I’d sooner believe he’s decided to run for Congress, he’s decided to jump out of a plane, he’s moving back to fucking India – 

The phone brrrrs, and Freddie jumps, of course, because he’s high-strung and can’t not react. 

Joe picks it up.

“Hi?” 

He expects something unwelcome, an annoyance at least, when he’s got Freddie settled in bed—always a palaver, to use Phoebe’s word—but it’s only Brian. 

“Is he okay?” He sounds bad too, not at Freddie’s level of nuts, but also like someone who isn’t getting a lot of sleep. 

“Mm-hm.” 

What’s he supposed to say? No, he threw up again after supper. He’s driving me crazy. He’s obsessed with his hairline, and with getting old, and he thinks he’s fat and he won’t stop talking about it, no matter what I say. Up in the night, every fucking night, with bad dreams and diarrhoea and neverending worry. 

What do you think I’m thinking, Brian? Things I wouldn’t say even if we were alone. 

Freddie’s right there. 

“Is he with you?” Brian says. 

“Yes.” 

“Who is it?” Freddie says, sounding fractious and horribly tired. “Tell them to go away.” 

“It’s Brian,” Joe says. “Do you want to talk to him?” 

“No,” Brian says over the phone, just as Freddie says “No,” far more childishly, from just a foot or so’s distance. 

“No,” Brian goes on. “I was just—I wanted to check on him, I was hoping he’d be asleep. Something seems … off.” 

Joe doesn’t exactly disagree, but he can’t reply, either. 

“Freddie’s tired,” he says carefully, “He can’t talk right now, but we’ll see you in the morning.” 

“Okay—okay, then.” 

Click.

It’s unsatisfactory in every possible way, and Freddie looks guilty, visibly upset, even though Joe has done only what he wanted in not passing the phone over. 

“I should’ve—” he begins, sitting up and curling into a ball, hugging his knees. “Poor Brian…” 

“He’s fine,” Joe says, reaching over to cuddle, but before he can really begin the phone is trilling again, and Freddie, who doesn’t rate consistency as particularly virtuous, wails and hides his face. 

“Brian?” 

He picks up the phone willingly enough, although what Brian hopes to get out of this, at this hour, he can’t imagine –

“Not Brian,” says a familiar, differently accented voice. “Sorry to disappoint.” 

“And the same to you,” Joe says, laughing a little. “Not-Freddie speaking, as you can surely tell.” 

“But Freddie has a perfect American accent,” Jim says composedly, and then they both laugh, but Freddie sits up and looks at Joe with such a woebegone face that his laughter turns off like a jet of water suddenly stifled. 

“Hey,” he says, reaching out. “It’s Jim, honey, here you go—” 

This is a call he won’t stay in the room for, but he hears Freddie’s first words as he gets up from the bed. 

“Jim,” says the unsteady little voice. “Oh Jim… Did someone tell you to call?” 

He’s stammering, truly nervous, and Joe feels his throat tighten. He hasn’t told Jim anything about how Freddie is, not one word. 

As he closes the bedroom door he hears Freddie say, “Oh no, no, I’m fine, love, just not—not feeling very well, but it’s only the tour, it’s tiring and I’m not as young as I was… But I’m okay, you know me, I’ll perk up in no time!” 

When the door is closed, he can’t hear anymore. Freddie has never been a loud man, except when he’s frightened, or up on the stage.

*


End file.
